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My Guest:
Jonathan Lewis: The Unfinished Social Entrepreneur
Jonathan Lewis returns with his new book, “The Unfinished Social Entrepreneur,” a collection of 21 original essays on a career in social entrepreneurship.
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of booth al mus if i saw that you missed today’s show the unfinished social entrepreneur jonathan lewis returns with his new book, the unfinished social entrepreneur, a collection of twenty one original essay’s on a career in social entrepreneurship on tony’s take two, let planned e-giving cooperate. We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com, and by we be spelling super cool spelling bee fundraisers. We be e spelling dot com my enormous pleasure to welcome back jonathan see luis he’s, a life long social justice activist and social entrepreneur. He’s, the founder of m c e social capital, a social venture that leverage is one hundred ten million dollars of private capital to finance tiny business loans to deeply impoverished people, mostly women in thirty three countries in the developing world. He’s, also founder and president of the opportunity collaboration where i was for three, three years, an annual strategic business retreat for four hundred. Fifty senior level anti poverty leaders from around the globe. He’s, the co founder of copia global, an amazon like consumer catalog serving the base of the economic pyramid in kenya. Jonathan is a trustee of the swift foundation and a general partner of dev equity, a social impact investment fund in latin america. He has taught social entrepreneurship in you new york university and u c berkeley that’s two schools and why you is new york university. I don’t want to overstate it that you think he’s been three schools he’s been to new york university and u c berkeley let’s not overstate the case and he’s at jonathan see louis dot com and at social and s o c e n t clinic. Welcome back, jonathan. See? Louis. Thanks. Good to be back. What’s the c for i don’t think i asked you last time. What’s it what’s your c for charles. Jonathan. Charles. Okay. Yeah, you have. Ah, you could call me mister. You could call him if i could, but i’m not going to. I know, i know, i know so. But thank you for the privilege. Um, tell me about this book twenty one. Twenty. One essays? Uh, it’s. Sort of ah life’s ah, life’s journey a life’s work? Yeah, yeah, it actually is, um, i got the idea for the book when ah, being a teacher on listening to the questions, my students, idealistic students deeply well valued students, students concerned about our environment concerned about economic justice, racial justice and gender equality, the questions they were asking me and i realize more and more i was answering them from my personal life experience more than i was from the academic literature or other voices that i had heard, you know, a particular conference or whatever. And so i sat down. And just as the personal exercise, really a personal journey, i started to collect my thoughts on this thing we call social change or, in the contemporary popular phrase social entrepreneurship. Initially, i wasn’t actually planning tto have a book. I was i used to have a newsletter, and i had titled it the book i think i might write, and i just started sharing these thoughts in my newsletter, but the feedback was very positive, and i was able to find a competent, inspiring editor who taught me how to write a book and so it began. Durney you know we are you. You sort of defined. I mean, you know, call it definition, but you label our social entrepreneurship, a love affair with justice. Say more about that. I’ve been at this a long time. I started my change making career in the nineteen sixties has an antiwar activists, uh, civil rights activists, um and other causes too numerous to name, as they say, the currents, the running through put the theme of all of those activities is justice how we in society we find ourselves how we take care of the least among us, how we step up, what our ideas about equality and, um f d r and whatever praise we used in the sixties and called herself community organizers and political activists. Now we’re calling ourselves social entrepreneurs. Yes, there are differences within those silos, but largely the thing that binds us together as a community. The kinship community of conscience is this notion our collective idea of what a just society looks like. And sometimes i think when we teach social change work or we are social change conferences, we get lost in the methodology and the latest measurement bad or the latest funding mechanism, almost ideological debate, sort of sectarian debates xero useful, they’re all valuable. They all help us refine how to be more effective but in the end, what keeps us? Motivated is the notion of justice. Who did you have in mind as you’re writing? I couldn’t hear that just now did you have in mind as you were writing, who you writing for that’s? A very interesting question. Originally i was writing for myself, i was trying to clarify my own thinking and at parties when people say, how’s the book going, i found myself saying, well, i’m discovering my own hypocrisy. I’m discovering again what i don’t know about this space, how little there is, uh, that i’m one hundred percent confident about so it was i was writing to myself. Then i reoriented and changed, if you will, talking to myself and i started talking to this imaginary person who might be twenty to twenty five, twenty eight, thirty two years of age, who has chosen a career to use the cliche, making the world a better place wants to combine the work they do the way they make a living with their idealism. As it turned out, i’m already getting enormous amount of feedback from people who read early versions of the book that there really two audiences there’s the audience i intended, and then there’s a secondary or equally important audience of people who have been out in the world. For a while, who are maybe in their late thirties or mid forties who are reevaluating the work, they’ve done its meaning and asking themselves fundamental ethical questions about how to go about being a change maker in a more impactful way. You have essays at the end of most of the chapters, take two and i gather a good number of those air by people forty and over, no that’s incorrect. So the each chapter has a short commentary by someone who is not like me, which is to say not, eh white male, american in there, uh, late sixties and the basic a basic theme of the book is that i don’t have all the answers that largely it’s something i’m still asking important questions and learning as i go to demonstrate that we took the book and we asked people around the world who are social change activists, some of them as young as in their mid twenty, some of them in their mid forties, people of color women activists supports and so on to write commenters the picket chapter and write a commentary from their personal life experience. Agree with me? Disagree with me, whatever we had an outside editor collect those stories and they went in the book without me seeing them. I’m reading them at the same time. You are okay, i think the ones i read, i think the ones i read with the with the older group. All right, we’re gonna go after a break, our first of a couple of jonathan and when we come back, we’re gonna we’re gonna explore. Ah, jonathan charles growing up in the mid sixties, san francisco stay with us. Okay, you’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Jonathan. So, as i tease labbate, you grew up in the mid sixties in san francisco, and you say, that’s, where you found your moral compass. How did how did that that period, in form, everything after i was in high school. It was a time of great attention. Boat across generations, across ideologies there was dahna hey, i’m going to say a tumultuous civil rights movement forming, uh, every night the news was filled with one injustice after another one outrage after another. Um, at the same time, the war in vietnam was starting to escalate. I was in san francisco, a very politically conscious, aware community. So all around, my teachers were talking about these things. People on the streets were talking about the book stores were selling books that were on one or the other side of all the various debates of the time, it would have been it’s really difficult to go through my high school years without being aware that, um, activity in the pacific, the public square and civic center was an important thing to be paying attention to on dh. And i did and paid attention the same time. Like most high school kids, i was self absorbed, and i’m sure that a lot of the activities that i volunteered for, um, were as much about my own development and wanting to belong to something and tear here a membership. Card as any other ah, young person growing up. But for all of that, it anchored me in this idea that all of us, whatever our primary jobs, whatever our primary family obligation, have a coequal obligation to be part of our communities and participate in the civic. Um, a moment and that stuck with me all my life. You talk about the economic and racial inequality that you saw there. Well, i want to be clear. Yeah. Let me divide that question. I thought every night on the news i mean, this was, um ah, television att six o’clock was a window into the world around me. That was not, you know, close in. But in addition to that every day i would get on the bus and go to my high school. And it was ah, a long bus ride took an hour, and it took me through lots of different san francisco communities at the communities, communities of wealth, communities of impoverishment. And it was really difficult. Day after day not take note was it was like a pbs documentary rolling across the bus screen or the bus window at the bus move through these communities and the physical manifestation of the injustice um, economic injustice, racial injustice supports and so on it was right in front of me. I mean, you would have had to be. You have to work very, very hard to not see that, and i did, and i didn’t work hard. I mean, i’m not it wasn’t an unusual person. It was just something you could just pay attention to just finding a live by being ascension being by having eyes and ears. And i find the way think that’s true. Today i think that you have to work very hard to not be part of, if you will. A university without walls latto too blind yourself two the things that are wrong in the world today your first essay is titled justice, and i want to give listeners ah, sense of the what the topics are on. So i’m going through the show. I’m gonna take a little walk through the contents a little bit of time, so the first few are justice, starting touch, passion prepared rescued. You, uh, in starting tony, let me just say, let me just say because i think it will help your your readership a little bit. I think we’ve come to this work for very for, for soft reasons that we hold very tight and i think soft reasons, because it’s so far we’ve talked about fairly ephemeral ideas, justice and what’s the compassion and other things that bind us as human beings together and bring us into a sense of community and collective activities. I’m sure every single person works in a non profit organization feels that that of heart centered tugs, but the other half of the book is a really hard advice. I am not interested in inviting young, idealistic people to come into this space or keeping older, idealistic people in our space if they don’t do high quality work. We’ve seen enough of that. We need people who know how to balance budgets and can write press releases who do great graphic design, who do good talk show podcast like you do, who are serious about the important work that needs to be done. And so a lot of the boat is, if you will, tips. Or suggestions or ideas that i picked up over my lifetime. That at least worked for me, and i’m just one person, so doesn’t mean i work for everybody. But i do share those so that we work to the highest standards we can possibly have. One of the things you recommend early on is taking risks and and not not fearing failure. That’s, in fact, that’s, one of your one of your essays on failure, but taking risks but get started. Yeah, yes, definitely. The line between someone who is endlessly preparing themselves, learning more languages, developing more skill, reading mohr literature, getting ever increasingly ready to go, the line between that person and the person who endlessly procrastinates is a very thin line. The results of the same. So i think there’s a both a learning by doing an on the job training component, which is essential because you need to go out to the communities where you phil, you have authenticity to work and listen and learn from those communities. You can’t do that? Uh, yeah, from your sofa anymore than you can learn toe swim from reading a book on hydraulic engineering, and then i also think there’s a maturation that occurred that feedback loop, what happens? Um, and lastly, i would just say that i think that there’s a lot of unfortunate advice that are given to young people about holding the back, putting them down, saying, basically, you’re not ready, you’re not completely train, jer, you’re going to do a lot of damage out there. Well, the fact of the matter is, there’s a lot of damage done when people do nothing, and i think we have a bigger problem with not enough ordinary people doing heroic things than people trying to be heroes. We just need people to step up in the modest ways they can, but waiting around accomplishes nothing. So if i have to choose, i want people to thoughtfully get started, learn what you can learn, find good mentors, the good listeners prepare and in the course work that you can find available, but realized that in the end, you’re never completely prepared to get started. I’m not prepared, i’ve been at this a lifetime, and i’m always learning new things. I’m always fumbling, i’m always making the stakes and the last point it would make on that is that failing and some ble is also part of the process of learning the empathy reed to actually do this work, because in the end, the work is rooted in our sense of empathy and compassion and kindness and all those fundamental basic human instincts. And you learn those by living your life, not by hiding from it. And you have essays on some of the things that you mentioned, even including i mentioned failure but listenership and men toward and you you are, you know. Obviously realistic. I hope you don’t mind me quoting parts of the book back to you. Do you hope you don’t object to that? No, in fact, let me name, drop and just say that i’ve met the author. I met the guy i met, the editor of the take two essays, lissa pierce. He was on our show. Yes, she’s been on, and i didn’t. He played her like within the past month or so. Latto. Starting a social justice journey is like starting one of those aggravating jigsaw puzzles without a picture on the box. Duitz flush out out, say, same or two people who are thinking about whether they wantto create this puzzle. Dad. Buy-in well, to use the cliche. You can’t know what you don’t know. I mean, it’s, our imagination, a rooted in our history. So i don’t think there is something very profound about this. Back-up when you get started often times your started like a seven in the image it’s a jigsaw puzzle, but you don’t actually know what the when you’re done with it what that puzzle picture will look like because for whatever reason there’s, not a picture on the box, you lost the box cover. Whatever social justice works, social entrepreneurship, social change, making all of that political activity has that feel to it. It’s one step in front of the other, you get started, and as you get started, your views are informed and changed, especially if you’re a good listener by the communities in which you work. And so you find out about new needs you find out about resource is you find out about new opportunities, and you’re constantly emerging those into a new idea about what that puzzle picture is going to look like and making adjustments. If anything, i should have probably title one of the chapters flexibility, because the nature of social entrepreneurship is not so much on ideology but a mindset about how to go about problem solving, and it begins by being a good listener, paying attention to your community and making mid course adjustments just the way when you’re working on a puzzle, you’re working on one section of it and you get a little frustrated or you get a you can’t find the right piece, and then all of a sudden, some other section you notice a few pieces fit together and you work on that for a while and it’s a constant back import that you move through the point here is it sounds daunting, but every single one of us could be doing that you don’t need a phd and social change, you don’t need a advanced medical degree and, um, uh, social entrepreneurship, everybody can get started yesterday. And if one of the other things about the book that’s really important to me, i just want to say that there will be some of your listeners right now who are thinking themselves. Oh, yeah, that sounds right. And i hope that george down the street, does that or harriet at our whatever book club will maybe read this booking, get involved that baloney, that bullshit. This book is for each person individually, if you’re alone and you’re listening to this broadcast, i’m talking to you each one of us needs to be a social entrepreneur, each one of those things to be a change maker in the way that we put in the communities in which we offer it in places where we could make some difference in the world. If i’m twenty two or twenty three, four whatever, basically at a college, maybe a couple of years out. What? What? What advice? Do you have us drilling to some of these concrete tips that you you that you want to share with millennials? What? What? What? What should i do? Oh, well, i think the way that gets framed is how do i find my past? And i have to send a little funny because it is funny, but i think that if somebody is at that point in their life and they’re struggling to figure out what is their passion and where they should go next, i think the face stop talking to their friends, locked themselves in a room with a pile of snacks and meals and whatever they need and just turned on the tv. Any table news station and just watch tv all day long twenty four seven until they were blurry eye. For whatever period of time, the points at which they find themselves really mad yelling at the tv that’s their passion that’s how you find what you care about. No, i’m obviously that’s a little silly, but the point here is you need to you need to invest both in an issue or yourself or both. You need to say, you can’t just keep waiting around, you have to get out there and do something. And while you’re doing stuff kapin your passion will find you it’s, not the other way around. You will start answering. How can i make how are my talents best used in the world to solve the problems that make me mad? That really pissed me off that i cannot abide any longer, so i know that sounds a little bit soft, but it’s actually not it’s it’s saying, pick up the phone, volunteer it welcome precinct than a political campaign, it’s enjoying a local chapter of an organization that you care deeply about it’s a step up and get out there, you can always change these air, not lifelong commitments. I’ve worked on a lot of different issues over my lifetime environmental issues, women’s rights issues, civil rights issues on and on and on and on economic justice issues and support you’re not handcuffed to these things. The only guarantee in life is that if you stay at home, if you’re just constantly waiting, enabled gauging, the only guarantee that comes with that is that the world will not be a better place, and frankly, you won’t be a better person. They’re not going to develop the talents and skills you need in a closet. The talents and skills you need are built and learned in the field and and you’re even, by the way, just feel kind of loosely here because obviously there’s book learning and other things that are worthwhile to do in the interim language acquisition skill that you’re gonna work over and support. But i think people get the drift of what i’m saying and that’s consistent with your admonition to just get get started. I mean, take take risks don’t fear failure, and i realize now you know, i mean, this applies to people who are in their thirties too, and maybe in something that’s, unsatisfying or just have never, never found something that well, that’s unsatisfying it just never, never found something that moves them all right. Don’t talk to people in their sixties, and i do want to be careful here. I don’t mean to just done thoughtfully, go clumping around the world, butting into every community with an arrogance and a i’m here to solve your problems. Attitude, it’s, too late. I’m presuming, you’re listenership, that’s, fairly sophisticated, and they already have a sense of what they need to know before they get started. Don’t you? Didn’t you didn’t hear me say it’s, too late for that. I lost the thread there. Apology, okay, that’s, all right, listeners got it. Well, i’ll fill you in later. All right, so what if i what if i want a job in this? The things you mentioned so far are excellent volunteer opportunities. Get involved. Grassroots suppose i want a job in entrepreneurship, social change work. What do you recommend, this’s going back to your doesn’t go back to cafe impact days? What do i do? I actually was talking to people who want to do have a career and social change. I think that starting steps are essentially the same. Okay, you have to be in a community of conscience. You have to find, um, let’s. Just take a really pedantic, almost ridiculous example. You’re in a book club. You could be in a book club that talks about read books, about social justice, about change making about monisha whatever or you could be in a book club that’s reading, uh, wonderful world class fiction. Both those book clubs so are going to select different people to come to them both. They’re worthwhile o ther satisfying. And i think both are. Terrific to do. But the social justice book club is going to put you in a community of people with whom you can find support. Who can teach you things who can network youto find jobs on and on and on. Put yourself in communities that are making a difference. And the easiest way to do that is to show up. And, in turn, get fellowships. Apply for entry level jobs, in turn support and so on. There’s, just no substitute. Listen, let me just say again, seems self evident, but it’s called social entrepreneurship it’s a social activity. We do it with other people. That’s, what this work is whether you’re seeking to do it as a part time volunteer, or you’re seeking to do it as a life long career, these air people skills that moved people to do work, economic development starts with human development, changing the protecting our earth and the environment begins with mobilizing people to do that. This is a community based activity, however you choose to find community, it could be the neighborhood block. Um, it could be folks you know, e-giving across town. It could be a community around the world, people to find and see their community differently all good, but it is community, it is other people. Jonathan, i need youto hang out for a few minutes. Why do a little business? There’s mohr with jonathan lewis coming up, we’re going to continue, of course, the conversation that his book, the unfinished social entrepreneur first, pursuant, they’ve got an infographic for you. Five steps to win at data driven fund-raising who doesn’t love infographics, these things. They’re they’re adorable. They’re smart like your kids before they turned into teenage brats, or like your husband back when he used to be your boyfriend. Do you know? Only one half of one percent of all data is ever analysed and used which data is important? One half more than one half of one per cent is important, but what among the other ninety nine and a half percent should you be acting on? And what should you maybe not even be collecting? How do you use your data to deepen dahna relationships and dr greater fund-raising that’s what the infographic is? Check out five steps to win at data driven fund-raising it’s at pursuing two dot com quick resource is then infographics we’ll be spelling spelling bee fundraisers these things air millennial magic a night of raising money for your organization around spelling and dance live music check out the video at we b e spelling dot com, and it talks to ceo alex career it’s that simple. Now time for tony’s take two shot outside the park slope food co op, which i’m a member for fifteen years or so in brooklyn, new york. My video this week is let planned giving cooperate with your fund-raising you can include plan giving in lots of your solicitations when the potential donor is the right. Age, i believe. And i think you my advice is that you do that. Start thinking. Think more about plan giving ifyou’re not including it in your in your solicitations. Simplest plan gift. You’ve heard me talk about it. The bequest in someone’s will charitable bequests it’s not going to take away from the rest of your solicitation? In fact, it adds a dimension for negotiation. If the if you need to negotiate. If the potential donor is not enthralled by your solicitation, you’re adding another dimension of negotiation. When you, when you add that potential bequest, the video is at tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s tech too. And now it’s time more for jonathan lewis joining us from san francisco. Jonathan, you’re still there right now, okay? I want to, uh uh, well, i want to take a little romp through the ah little more romp through the table of contents continuing with when we’ve mentioned a couple times already. Listenership words connections meant toward failure, abandonment, bruised misgivings. Let me talk to you. What? Which which i say would you like to talk about? I have others in the queue, so if you’re not but what’s what’s the author’s favorite or one you’d like to talk about if it’s not your favorite? Well, that’s a great question, it’s a simple latto let me pass, because on the question, the book just appeared on amazon, the elektronik version a day ago so close to this that i don’t know that i yet have the distance to pick one or two chapters that air feel better to me than others serve that are closer to my heart. I can’t do that just yet. What’s a damn good thing the host is prepared, isn’t it? It isthe are you always prepared to show my love? All right, then? Okay, uh, that’s interesting. I mean, uh, i’ve never written a book, so i’m not disagreeing with what you feel. I’m not challenged by no means my chair. You feel it’s just hard for me to understand, but i’m not. I’m not questioning it. It’s just it’s. Very interesting. Very interesting. Okay, that’s. The reason for this, which is in the weeds a little bit is these essays were written over a year and a half. So now they’ve obviously been added recently read the whole book through and so forth. But they they emerged from. I’m going to say that my soul and my life experience over eighteen months at different, triggered by different things that i was experiencing in those moments. And so the weighted value when you said to me, which one’s, the favorite awaited value, is a little hard for me to put my arms around right now, just because zoho the way the book is, you’re reading it all at once. But for me, it was an eighteen months writing project, so i need a little distance to answer that question. Okay, okay, as long as i don’t see you on morning joe or rachel maddow answering that question tomorrow, you’re okay. All right, listenership you have ah, each starts with a a brief. I’m going to call it executive summary. You wouldn’t you probably would not agree with that, but that’s what? I thought of it as a couple of sentences. In fact, one won t open each essay on the warning. Listenership is listening is the industrial spying of social change? What are you talking about? What i was trying this goes to the point we were talking about earlier, which is the book there’s a duality every essay which is the words sound soft us sometimes, but the implementation of them very disciplined and hard listenership is a perfect example there i’ve never met anybody who’s in favor of bad listener ship it’s one of those apple pie things that everybody signs up for, even though we know there’s quite a few people who are really awful listeners, but for all that nobody thinks of themselves as an awful is in the way that most people don’t think they’re bad drivers. Now we’re all you know there are bad drivers from the average number of accidents on the freeway. The point of the phrase is to say, listen with your ship is an essential skill of social change, agent. You’ve got to be able to listen college after listen, toe the communities you served, you need to listen to financial backers you need good listening is the way we move our agendas and lots of people think of it is a soft skill, but the fact is it also has a hard edge to it, which is you’re really spine. You’re really doing the the equivalent of industrial fine. You’re learning about the other party for the purpose of figuring out where the connect points are or if you will, the points of leverage to convince them to join and sign up for your cause your mission, your purpose in life. So it has a time using this word lightly a slight, manipulative quality to it not in an unhealthy way, but we listened to change other people, and we listen to be changed by them and that’s an interactive enter the process. It’s the nature of the human experience. Um, i don’t think we have to put a value on it or bad, but it’s a reality and it’s a little naive for social change agents to walk. Around and sound like they’re just listening as empty vessels, uh, taking and everybody else and then sort of amalgamating it into someone’s rainbow like of life that they lead. We’re constantly, uh, being open beard without also realizing that part of that is using what they’re hearing and learning and listening for to build a community consensus around an issue that they’ve already predetermined is an important one. And in that sense, it’s industrials. Fine, i hope i explain that. Well, yeah, you did in terms of being willing to be changed by others, you you had admonish i’d say that listenership means turning off the filters that shield us from understanding the world as it is. We’ve got we’ve got a cast are far rose colored glasses and be open to what’s very difficult to here and what’s going to challenge hyre our beliefs, i’d even go further. I think we need it’s not a case of casting off our rose colored glasses. It’s a case of casting off whatever color are glasses are i let me speak from my own experience. I haven’t. My views are in the current political climate, my views are very anti trumpian. I’m not happy with for our cubine of the white house, i tend to look a folks who are pro trump through a very dark colored glass that impute to them because i don’t understand what they’re talking about. I think i tend to want to impute to them motives and darkness and evil that it’s probably a probably, i’m sure it’s unreasonable, i’m sure that you can be a ah ah trump activists and not kick dogs and and love your family and be a perfectly good person, but i have a very strong disagreement on how they operate. The point is, if i’m in a conversation with a person with whom i have a strong disagreement, i have to be willing not just to see that the dark side of them, but see all of them because change doesn’t happen um, if we’re not able to do that or it may happen, but it happened, then doesn’t stick doesn’t mean i agree with people when i under steer them, but if i don’t hear them and understand them, i can’t move on agenda, i can’t be all that i need to be, and there is frequently the possibility. That i’m just dead wrong on something. In fact, one of the segments in the chapter called misgivings is a perfect example of that. Almost all my life, i have been an advocate of big large scale change, you know, lots of impoverished people in the world with lots of environmental disasters. We need big, systemic change in the course of doing the old kapin impact videos that i did that you referenced earlier, i found myself interviewing a single mother, and in the course of that conversation, with there, i said the first time or maybe that’s too strong, but i heard with greater ferocity the importance of the good parenting as a form of social change. And i write in the book that it’s not altogether certain. Ah, a certainty that all the social change work that many of us are doing holds a candle to the incredible social justice work that the parents of the nelson mandela or martin luther king did in raising a child who in turn, would go out to do good things in the world so way need toe honor. Social change in all different levels is my point, but i learned that later in life, and i learned it because in that moment i was not listening with my voice, waiting to make the next statement make the next point in my own conversation, i was listening toe learn and to learn from a person who had twenty minutes ago i had never met, but in that moment i was listening intensely and i learned something important to me, and i’m glad i did, is it? Ah, i think it’s pulp fiction, where john travolta gets asked, do you? Do you really listen? Or do you wait? Wait to talk? I think that’s pulp fiction i don’t know it’s fiction, but the point of balance? Yes, okay, tronvig oppcoll popular culture into the into the into the convo, you know, maybe dated popular, maybe dated popular, but all right, okay, we’ve alluded a couple of times to cafe impact. In fact, cafe impact is why you were on the property of the very first time talking about that series of videos on dh that leads tio the essay on failure and your executive summary is again forgive me if if you don’t really like that hyre that description of it, but failure. Is not contagious. You don’t get it from toilet seats. It’s not transmitted by airborne pathogens. You don’t catch it from talking about it. Now. I need thio admonish you that we just have about a minute and a half or so before next break. So maybe you can just lead us into failure, and then we’ll have more time to talk about it after. The basic point of the chapter is that we all fail, we fail in relationships and friendships in business situations and political situations in life is a series of mistake, not all of you are failures or whatever we want to call them, but not not happy success moments not in the conventional was a paradigm. We typically hear people talking about failure at commencement, graduation, commencement speeches, where they describe failure as a stepping stone on the way to greatness or success, and yet it is that a little bit, but sometimes you just fail, you just mess up and you’ve got to pick yourself up and go do something else or to start again or whatever you cannot do social change work unless you’re ready to failure fail because the work we do is taking on the status quo, and we have less power, less money less lets general capacity to change things that’s, why we’re changing agents. So you have to buy into this idea that not every time we’re going to be successful, and more importantly, if you’re not taking on the big challenges of our time, then what the hell are you doing? And if you were taking on big challenges. Sometimes you’re going to fail. That’s, the point of the chapter, brilliantly done. Thank you for that. We’re gonna go out for another break. When we come back, we’ve got live listener, love and more with jonathan lewis, stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from a standup comedy, tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to, he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. 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If you have big dreams in a small budget tune into tony martignetti non-profit radio, i d’oh. I’m adam braun, founder of pencils of promise. Gotta do the live listener love, and i’m gonna try something geographic. See if i speaking of the failure essay, see if i fall flat on my face, but starting with the epicenter of non-profit radio right here in manhattan, new york city, we’ve got we’ve got new york, new york, thank you, and live. Listen level. So to staten island, new york, woodbridge, new jersey. Oh, so already failed it. Bronx, new york branch is here. I should know. No slight bronx bronx certainly should have come before new jersey in the geographic assessment of live listen, love so, bronx, new york live love to you, woodbridge, new jersey, frederick, maryland. New bern, north carolina, on tampa, florida i think that’s ah, think that’s ah that’s, our domestic love on the east coast, who got way out west, we got kent, washington got los angeles, okay, so i went from no, i was pretty good, but from north of the west to south of the west, well done. Thank you, labbate, sir love to all of our domestic live listeners and going abroad. All right, this is a bit of a challenge. Let’s. Start in the let’s start in asia because that’s, where the most loyal listeners are definitely seoul, south korea, multiple soul on your haserot comes a ham nida and also china, a beijing couple in beijing, ni hao. Now, if we start to go west that’s, where i get into trouble now, okay, hungary, we’ve got multiple hungary. We’ve got multiple germany. So, of course. Germany cars. Guten tag, naturally natural. And then continuing our rump abroad, i guess you have to come back to north america because we’ve got ottawa live listen love to you as well, and i believe that covers the live love. Oh, buenos argast argentina and we’ve got to go south from here. Well, that was different, different continents. So i don’t feel bad about that one. So when does our days when the saudis live? Love to you as well? And mexico city, mexico, multiple in mexico city where opportunity collaboration is not too far from mexico city one hour flight when i first met jonathan. All right, live listen love running to you. Let me throw it love to we also have a listener from the african continent, the founder of court africa, which is a like a peace corps volunteer program, but for african by africans having to send you a text message during the commercial and she’s listing as well. So they don’t know tio core africa live listener love to core africa. Thank you. We do not see them for some reason, you know, way have. Ah, i think i think they’re patched through us phone number. Okay. Okay. Um and then, of course, on the heels, by the way, very few people i’m not sure anyone is ever interrupted the live listen love podcast, pleasantry and affiliate affections stream you may be the first that i’ve allowed to do that i believe you are so stand stand proud with that stand proud with that and on our anarchic our anarchist. So so the podcast pleasantries have to come, of course, two are over twelve thousand listeners on platforms like itunes and stitcher and pod bay and podcast and player player that’s. Another one live love to the over twelve thousand whatever task you’re doing, the most recent one i got was crushing afghans non-profit radio during afghan krauz saying time, i love it! I hope you don’t drop a stitch on our account. Please andi affiliate affections, of course, have to come never, never least never least dahna am and fm listeners throughout the country got stationed throughout the country. We’ve got a couple more coming up. I’m on the cusp of the cliff of announcing a couple of new affiliate stations to the to the affiliate family non-profit radio i’m so glad that you’re station slips ups slips us. Into its schedule. Thank you for being with us. Affections to the affiliate listeners. All right, jonathan, thank you very much for thank you for contributing. You know, i admonished you from being an anarchist, but thank you for contributing. Okay, let’s, talk more about failure. Do you want to tell your cafe impact story? Sure way like storms, we like stories, go ahead and that’s the reason you’re on number off less time non-profit radio last time i talked about the that the impact, which was an online video educational program for beginning social change agents and social entrepreneurs that i launched three partners ago, and i did it for protection, the memories that i wrote the book, which was trying to provide resource, is education knowledge shared with them among social entrepreneurs, we interviewed accomplished social entrepreneurs about their work and what lessons they wanted to pass along the other social entrepreneurs, and we had planned to do three seasons of it. We did one season, and in effect it went bankrupt because we put all our time and energy into doing the videos without spending any time doing what you’ve done so successfully with your protests, which is paying attention to distribution and a revenue model that can support the your programming. Mommy, i was cautioned about all this in the beginning, but i was so headstrong, uh, and without the benefit of a mentor toe brainstorm with, i didn’t hear the advice that i was given the point here of it. Is that it was a colossal failure and what i learned among many lessons, but that after it failed, i had a large number of people come up and try to console console me by day old looking, all the good you did, and look how much you’ve learned, and it was a learning experience and other, um, cheap phrases that we pass around a lot in the social sector for the times when we hit the wall and bloody our foreheads, i started to feel that it was a very artificial about it, because i had to remind myself that the mission statement of cafe impact was not educate jonathan lewis, and it wasn’t to give the management team a great learning experience, and it wasn’t to reach a few hundred thousand viewers, which was our numbers. It was to reach millions of viewers, and it was to reach them with a financially sustainable business model. It could be self perpetuating and therefore bring in every never wider diversity of voices onto the onto indoor programming. And we didn’t achieve the goals we set out to do, period, full stop and all those little secondary benefits while they were nice and occasionally makes me feel a little bit better were became a case of if i believe them, i would be lying to myself. It was a failure, we didn’t need our goals. It was a flop and way had to close that that’s the story, and i think we need more discipline in the social sector. We need to be honest with ourselves. It doesn’t, um do it any good to make up expos. Facto stories about the work we do, we need to be disciplined, we need to be smart and we made we need and we need toe own where we’ve made our mistakes. Every other sector does this when an airplane crashes there’s a postmortem, and the result of many postmortems is that when you and i get in a plane and we’re thirty five thousand feet were not shredding that the planes going full out of the sky. It happens, but it’s very rare. Jonathan jonathan, at the risk of ending the show in a plane crash. Wait plain or hope right to the host right to the host. But the man is jonathan lewis by the book for god’s sake, that i mean that’s the point to continue my romp through the through the contents pluralism bystander power hegemony white which i wanted to talk about we don’t have a chance. Globalization lifeblood. Get the book. You’ll find it on amazon. You’ll find it at jonathan. See louis dot com jonathan, thank you for sharing. Thanks so much. My pleasure. Thanks, tony picture. But next week, don’t be the founder from hell and your disaster recovery plan. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers we b e spelling dot com our creative producers claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Betty mcardle is our am and fm outreach director. The show’s social media is by susan chavez on music is by scott stein you with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be green what’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark insights orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff sort of dane toe add an email. Address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge. Somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do you put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.
